International Academy, Clarkston and Milford teams take top world robotics honors

International Academy Central Team Las Guerrillas 469 celebrate their win at FIRST Robotics World Championship in St. Louis Mo. Clarkston Team Rush 27 won the Chairman’s Award.
Photo from the Las Guerrillas website.

Members of the International Academy Las Guerrillas and Clarkston RUSH work on their robotics during FIRST World Robotics Championship competition in Kansas City, Mo.
Photo by Emily Poirier, student at Eisenhower High School

= International Academy Central •Team Las Guerrillas 469 came back a winner from the 2014 FIRST World Robotic championship in Kansas City, Mo,

A consortium International Baccalaurette school in Bloomfield Hills, the academy’s win was its second championship in 11 years. This year the team won with the help of partners •Holland Black River Schools Team C.H.A.O.S. and teams from Californial and Texas.

“Our team works and competes extremely hard with the goal of winning a world championship, so to achieve that goal is obviously great,” said Dan Kimura, lead •mentor for Las Guerrillas, who works at the •Robot Garage in Birmingham

“Winning is the ultimate confirmation that everyone on the team worked hard,” said International Academy senior Brendan Lout. “It is also validation for spending almost every day at the shop working on the robot or scouting.”

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By winning the Championship from the Curie Division, Las Guerrillas and their alliance also broke what is known in the FRC community as the •“Curie Curse.” An alliance from the Curie Division has not won the championship since the division system was adopted.

“I think it has been mostly coincidence that nobody from Curie has won until now,” said Academy senior •Tommy Anderson. “But with that being said, it does still feel good that we will go down as the team that broke the Curie Curse.”

The •HOT Team from Milford won the Galilee Division at this year’s championship.

And •Team RUSH 27 from Clarkston won the most prestigious award in FIRST, the •Chairman’s Award given to a role model team that emulates the pillars of FIRST. This honor put the team in the FRC Hall of Fame. It shares that honor with previous winners Milford and Pontiac schools. Camron Razdar of Team RUSH was named a Dean’s List Award winner..

“This has been the most amazing journey to get here,” said Clarkston teacher and •Team RUSH coach, Kyle Hughes.

“I’m proud of our championship FIRST Robotics teams as well as the other Michigan teams and the mentors working with them,” •Gov. Rick Snyder said, Monday. “These public-private partnerships not only produce champions, they are creating a new generation of people with in-demand skills who will continue to help our state grow and thrive long into the future.”

• Gail Alpert, president of FIRST in Michigan, added: “The Governor’s enthusiasm and support for our program, which translated into a •$3 million grant, has been monumental in starting new high school teams all over the state.”